ZNet article by Mark Solomon--
- From: "Maureen" <foxy1vixen@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 5 Jun 2006 10:32:48 -0700
ZNet | Culture
Springsteen's "We Shall Overcome" Tour
A New Surge of People's Culture -- And Progressive Politics
by Mark Solomon; May 31, 2006
Three hours before the start of Bruce Springsteen's first US
concert in tribute to Pete Seeger, the huge parking lot around the
suburban Boston arena was already gorged with scores of tailgate
parties that had gathered from all over the eastern seaboard. The core
of the crowd seemed pretty much the same as Springsteen's rock
following. It was overwhelmingly white, made up of largely suburban
working and middle class women and men from their thirties to their
early fifties. For more than a generation those fans had embraced
Springsteen's buoyantly desperate bar songs, his paeans to restless
youth "born to run" from spiritually empty suburban lives as well as
songs about the crushing weight of abandoned rust belt factories and
the devastating impact of lost jobs and lost dreams upon working class
families.
Beyond that traditional core of fans were atypical smatterings of
older people and families with small kids drawn to Springsteen's homage
to Pete Seeger's kaleidoscope of folk music. Release of the "We Shall
Overcome" album a month before the tour had already prepared the crowd
for a departure from Springsteen's standard rock show. But the sheer
power of seventeen live musicians blasting away from a back porch set
with accordions, fiddles, washboards, banjoes, steel guitars, and
blowsy horns backing the stomping, shouting rock star was enormous.
True to Seeger's devotion to the breadth of the country's
multicultural traditions, the concert ranged over outlaw ballads,
dustbowl songs, sea chanteys, gospel, work songs, political songs,
Cajun Zydeco, mariachi, polka, New Orleans jazz, soul, even World War
II jitterbug. That triggered thoughts about Pete's love of country that
deigns to celebrate its wealth and power, but rather is devoted to its
rich, diverse people's culture. Recognizing that historically much of
the spiritual - and financial - support for music from the country's
soul came from the left, one was reminded about how vapid and ignorant
are the recent claims of some that the left is deficient in patriotism.
The "We Shall Overcome" album had folk, gospel and social movement
songs from the African American musical tradition. But black musicians
were absent. The touring "Seeger Sessions" band corrected that
indefensible omission. Four top African American musicians and singers
led by vocalist Marc Anthony Thompson visibly affirmed the inseparably
multinational and multiracial character of Pete's art.
Two thematically timely and politically impacting songs not on the
album were added to the tour list. Blind Alfred Reed's indictment of
racism and impoverishment, "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and
Live?" was written at the onset of the Great Depression.
Springsteen added lyrics reflecting his response to the
"unbelievable devastation" that he recently witnessed in New Orleans:
Tell me, how can a poor man stand such times and live?
There's bodies floatin' on Canal and the levees gone to Hell
I got family scattered from Texas all the way to Baltimore
And I ain't got no home in this world no more
Gonna be a judgment that's a fact, a righteous train rollin' down
this track
Tell me, how can a poor man stand such times and live?
The second significant addition was Seeger's updated anti-Vietnam
War song from 1965 with searing relevance today: "(If You Love Your
Uncle Sam) Bring 'Em Home." Introduced by Springsteen as an appropriate
theme for Memorial Day, the audience responded with applause and
cheers. Two pivotal political and moral issues of the time were
addressed with humanity and art: Katrina and Iraq. Along with the 1815
Irish antiwar ballad "Mrs. McGrath" and a mournful, yet hopeful
rendering of "When the Saints Go Marching In" along with Thompson,
Springsteen manifested his growing maturity as an artist and political
thinker. Neither hectoring his audience nor pandering, and with an
economy of words, he managed to convey tragedy, urgency and hope for
change.
Much has been written recently about the upsurge of protest in
popular culture. From the Dixie Chicks who won't back down, to Pink who
wrote a lacerating letter to Bush, to Neil Young who wants to impeach
him, to Mos Def and a growing array of hip hop poets and rappers who
increasingly voice their determination to fight within society and
within themselves the scourges of racism, sexism, violence and
oppression, and many more.
All such political art is nurtured by a latent and increasingly
manifest progressive majority and in turn strengthens that majority.
But little has been said about the impact of popular culture's
protest on the mindset of audiences. At the Springsteen concert, an
unscientific observation suggested that Greater Boston's ample peace
and justice community was not there. Yet, an audience most likely not
engaged in day-to-day activism reacted to "We Shall Overcome" and the
panoply of music celebrating work, joy and struggle with affirming
warmth and appreciation. With apologies for repetitive strategizing,
all that underscores not only a changing national mood (while the
right, of course, remains powerful, cunning and very dangerous), but
also the potential for productive engagement by organized progressive
forces with ever-broader publics.
It's unfortunate and unfair that access to such significant
cultural events is undermined by outrageous ticket prices. Let's hope
the artists and their fans start slugging it out with promoters, ticket
agencies and whomever else is responsible for those prices so that
those events become accessible to more socially, racially and
nationally diverse audiences. In the meantime, if the Seeger Sessions
Band comes to your neighborhood and you are able to attend, perhaps you
might consider bringing along some leaflets. You'll get a positive
response.
.
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